Trick Turn

by Tom Barber

  ‘There somewhere we can talk? In private?’

  ‘Think I’m stupid? You got something to say to me, say it here.’

  He hesitated, then released her gun hand. He pointed to a chair, then looked back at her. She moved over to it and sat slowly, her hand remaining close to her hip. She watched him carefully as he checked around, registering how uncomfortable he was in the public space. She didn’t care.

  ‘I know your kid is still alive,’ he said, taking a seat opposite her. ‘And I know the man who’s trying to kill her.’

  Inside Six Flags New Orleans, pieces of an old animal skull were scattered on one of the concrete paths, the long teeth grinning like a haunted house smile, the eye sockets long empty. As Archer and Bellefonte passed an old storage hut, they could see a heap of old mannequins through a gap where a door used to be, dumped inside on their sides and stained from rainwater.

  Where do theme parks go when they die? someone had sprayed onto a wall outside the hut in untidy lettering, other messages tagged on other walls Archer and Bellefonte passed.

  Nothing left to do but watch it burn, one said. Don’t look for me, I’m still here!! stated another.

  Archer’s eyes lingered on another basic tag. It ends too soon, the graffiti message said.

  ‘Stay clear of the water,’ Bellefonte warned, unnecessary advice as Archer was already taking care to give the pond to his left a wide berth, which seemed to be an inlet from a larger lake beyond. Branches of trees jutted out of it, some of them coiled and twisted around the struts and tracks of rides like the snakes that were no doubt lurking in the water somewhere.

  ‘We’re on the east side, right?’ Archer asked, as Bellefonte nodded. Over what was left of a haunted house exhibit to their right, a sneering jester wearing a mask and holding strings of beads loomed over them. Like the animal skull on the path behind, half his plastic face had been cracked open from what looked like impact trauma. Jocco’s Mardi Gras Ma- a sign below him said, the rest of it missing.

  ‘What’s the security deal here?’ Archer asked, looking back in the direction of the parking lot where they’d left the lone rent-a-cop in his car.

  ‘Private company hired by Six Flags, I think, but our Department sends people over too. Whoever’s on duty is supposed to patrol twenty four hours a day, but it’s a hundred forty acre site. Pretty easy for people to sneak in.’

  ‘Who the hell would want to sneak in here?’

  ‘You’d be surprised. Thrill-seekers, social media bloggers taking videos looking for hits. Junkies searching for somewhere to take shelter and shoot up. Sometimes movie studios use it, with permission. Think one of the Jurassic Park movies filmed scenes in the parking lot.’

  ‘Crime?’

  ‘Torched stolen cars, couple of dumped bodies out front in the lot. Reports of armed robbery and beatings. Gangs come out here time-to-time and jump trespassers to take anything of value they got on ‘em.’ He gave the grip of his pistol a knock with his knuckle. ‘I wouldn’t come in here without packing. This place stopped being fun a long time ago.’

  ‘You got that right,’ Archer replied quietly, stopping and looking around, the general aura of the site getting to him. A park like this was built for happiness, for noise.

  Without it and in the state it was in, Archer had never been anywhere that had felt so desolate.

  ‘And Gerry McGuinness worked here at some point,’ he said. Bellefonte glanced over at his New York City counterpart as Archer looked at the derelict amusement park around them.

  ‘We just gotta figure out when and where.’

  *

  ‘Tell me what I missed,’ Bianca Stefani had said the day she finally returned to Baltimore after years of absence. She tilted back in her chair and drank the Macallan in her glass, freshly showered, appetite satisfied after finishing the Burger King Vincent had brought her for the car ride from the port. ‘Things you couldn’t say over the phone.’

  ‘Ravens won a Superbowl,’ one of the younger members of the group said, a kid called Roberto. ‘Donald Trump got elected President-’

  ‘I read the news, kid. Someone else talk,’ she interrupted, the youngster’s voice fading away. ‘What I miss?’

  ‘We been stackin’ up territory, like you ordered,’ Marco said, one of her long-time men, knowing what she meant by the question. ‘Greeks pushed back for the docks but we fought them off. Bought another bar with our profits; looking to step up involvement in the casinos again. PD are leaving us alone with payoffs. Got a couple detectives in our pocket.’

  ‘Who found you out there?’ Vincent asked Stefani. ‘In Iceland? You were hidden pretty good.’

  ‘Pair of guinea assholes from the old country, I think. Someone must’ve tipped them off.’

  ‘You’re safe now. No-one from Italy is gonna hit you in Baltimore, Stef. This is our land, not theirs. And no-one knows you’re back yet.’

  ‘Let’s keep it that way, long as possible.’ She drank half the whisky in the glass. ‘D.C.?’

  ‘Trump’s got the FBI like sharks in shallow water there, so we been staying clear. But we’ve been doing business with guys in New York. In Midtown. That channel opened up to us again. Polonksy’s been earning good dollar trading guns for us up there.’

  She frowned. ‘Midtown? Gino Lombardi let that happen?’ she said, putting another ice cube in her glass from the small bowl in front of her. ‘His wife ain’t gonna do me no favors. Bitch hates me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Marco said. ‘She’s dead. So’s he.’

  She’d picked the bottle of Macallan to refill her glass but stopped midway. She placed it back down slowly and looked at him. ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘He and his entire family. They’re dead.’ Vincent clicked his fingers for one of the younger guys to refill her glass but Stefani reached forward and grabbed his arm.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They’re all dead?’ she reiterated, after Marco had told her about the day at the villa in East Hampton.

  ‘Nineteen of them. Gone in one hit job.’

  ‘We had nothing to do with it?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  She turned to Vincent. ‘You and me been talkin’ on the phone almost every month for four years as my only point of contact with you guys. And you never thought to mention it?’

  ‘Assumed you already knew,’ he lied. ‘It hit the news here pretty hard.’

  And I didn’t want you to know there was a survivor, he thought, knowing what his boss would’ve ordered if she discovered a child had come through the attack alive. Even back then, he’d never been on board with the idea of killing kids.

  ‘He’s dead.’ Stefani paused. ‘Him and his bitch wife are dead.’ She started laughing and clapped several times. Her laughter soon became hysterical, some of the men looking confused while others looked uncomfortable, not knowing how to react. The tension in the room meant the best they could manage were some forced smiles.

  ‘There’s one left,’ a voice suddenly said from the back.

  Beside Stefani’s desk, Vincent closed his eyes.

  Stefani’s laughter faded. Her scarred face turned towards the young soldier who’d made the comment. It was the same cugine who’d told her about the new president and the Superbowl. It seemed he hadn’t given up trying to impress her.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A kid. Their youngest-’

  ‘Speak up!’

  ‘Their youngest daughter. She survived.’

  ‘She still in New York?’

  ‘Last we heard, she took the stand against the men who killed her family and got adopted by some cop who works there,’ Vincent filled in, taking over and shooting a look at the young cugine that told him they were gonna talk privately after this.

  ‘How old is this brat?’ Stefani asked.

  ‘Ten or eleven now, I think,’ Vincent said quietly, after a pause. He knew his dead boss’s wife and the direction this was going.

  ‘So they’re no
t all dead, are they?’ She stared at him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that just now, Vincent?’

  ‘Because I didn’t think an eleven year old kid would be of interest to you, boss.’

  She looked at him for a moment longer, then turned to the others. ‘You wanted to know what your new orders are gonna be?’ she said to the men in the room. ‘If there were gonna be any changes to our focus? Here’s all you need to care about right now. Forget about expanding bars, casinos, DC., all that shit. I want that kid in a coffin first.’

  ‘You need us here,’ Vincent said. ‘We can’t go to New York. If the wrong people find out you’re back, you’ll be totally unprotec-’

  ‘So find someone to do it. In fact, that’d be better. Keeps us removed. Pay them whatever they ask. We got the cash.’

  ‘You don’t think this might be a little…’

  ‘A little what?’ Stefani’s eyes glittered, and Vincent knew he had to choose his next words carefully. The other men looked at him too as the tension in the room rose; he was very aware where their loyalty lay and it wasn’t with him. Stefani’s dead husband had done a lot for these guys.

  ‘…extreme. She’s only a kid, Stef.’

  ‘But she’s got Carla Lombardi’s blood running through her. That’s enough for me. And she won’t be a kid forever.’

  ‘She’s not gonna end up in the game. She got adopted by an NYPD cop, for Christ’s sake. She’s never gonna be a concern.’

  ‘When me and Rossi ran, I was thinking we’d end up on a beach in Mexico or some outta the way resort town in Florida,’ Stefani said, the words laced with venom. ‘Not that I’d be spending most of the next four years being forced to move from place to place, and end up freezing my ass off in some godawful country, mourning my husband.’

  Mourning Rossi, my ass, Vincent thought. Only person you ever cared about was yourself.

  ‘…and constantly on the move in case some son of a bitch found me,’ she continued. ‘That girl’s bitch mother and her dead husband are one of two reasons I went through all that shit.’ She pointed to her scarred face. ‘And why I ended up looking like a freak from a carnival. I don’t just want the Lombardis dead; I want every trace of them wiped out. Gone. Forever.’

  ‘Alright,’ Vincent said. ‘We get-’

  ‘Don’t ever interrupt me,’ she said. A deathly silence was the only response.

  ‘You want me to do it?’ the young soldier who’d spoken asked. ‘I can do it.’

  ‘You shaving yet?’ He’d become chirpier at the success of his remark, but her question immediately shut him up. She turned to the older men. ‘Last thing we need is it coming back to us. And you’re right, I need you here right now watching my back. Hire someone, like I told you.’ She refilled her glass, then shifted her head to look up at Vincent coldly. ‘You got til the end of next month to make sure she’s dead, Vin. I’ll give you until then.’

  ‘I’m gonna slap the head off that stupid kid Roberto next time I get him alone,’ Vincent told Marco, later that night. The pair were in the basement of Vinnie’s luxurious home, his wife and son upstairs watching TV. Despite the fact the place had been swept for bugs just a few hours ago, the men still had music playing in the background, just in case. ‘She didn’t need to know that girl was still alive.’

  ‘Who cares?’ Marco told him. ‘What Stef wants, she gets. And whaddya think would’ve happened if she found out later the girl had survived and that we knew? Why you so pissed about it anyway?’

  ‘You comfortable with putting moves on an eleven year old?’

  ‘You questioning the boss?’

  ‘You ain’t got kids. This girl’s the same age as Junior upstairs, Marc. She’s no threat to us.’

  ‘Stef wants her dead, we make it happen. Ain’t like the Lombardis are gonna come after us, is it?’ Marco added with a laugh.

  ‘You gonna do it?’

  ‘I gotta stay here and keep her protected. Like she said, we’ll just hire some asshole. We don’t need to be there. When it’s done, it’s done, like closing out an old part of Stef’s life.’ He slapped his fellow mobster’s shoulder. ‘Within a month, you’ll have forgot it ever happened.’

  Vincent still didn’t like it, but long years of experience had taught him to hide what he was thinking. ‘So who we gonna find to do it? Lot of people I can think of won’t waste a child that age.’

  ‘I know someone we can use,’ Marco said. ‘Let me make some calls.’ He took out a burner phone. ‘From what I was told about his guy, this sort of shit is his specialty.’

  THIRTY TWO

  ‘Marco said he’d heard about a case here in D.C. Some FBI agent was leading a task force going after a bunch of Italians trying to establish a grip in the city,’ Vincent said to Vargas. Although he’d asked again to take the conversation to a less public area out of sight and earshot, she’d refused, no intention of leaving the lobby with this guy. He glanced around uneasily, before continuing, what he’d told her so far already getting her attention. ‘Capital region’s never really had a presence of men like me-’

  ‘Criminals. Yes it has. You’re not special.’

  ‘I mean, made guys. D.C. ain’t ever had a big Italian-American community. When they showed up back in the day, immigrants went to places like New York, Philly, Chicago, Boston. Their neighborhoods always provided fresh recruits. Still do. But here, FBI crush any attempts to establish syndicates here before they gain traction. Then some Italians showed up fresh from the old country here a few years back, and they were different. They succeeded for while, because of this guy Marco’s cousin brought in.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘I’m gettin’ to that. This stranger was hired to whack the leading FBI organised crime agent’s kid. The Italians then threatened the lives of the other kids in this guy’s team if the agent didn’t ensure the heat on them cooled off. The gang ended up getting squashed eventually, but the FBI guy’s kid dying bought them a couple more good years.’

  ‘Why didn’t this gang kill the kid themselves?’

  ‘Murdering a Fed’s child? You really need me to answer that?’

  ‘But the man they hired didn’t care?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. Marco’s cousin was in this crew, and told him all about this guy they paid to do the job. Man had no problem killing anyone for a price and was available for hire. Good at it, too. And I mean, anyone.’

  ‘What was his story?’

  ‘No-one really knew. He’d been doing it for a few years in the North-east area, Marco said. Showed up out of nowhere and built a reputation, fast. Threw a couple of eighteen month old twins off a bridge in Providence, when a union guy wouldn’t pay up what he owed. Tied up a hired shooter who killed a made guy in Philly and stuffed him in a brick oven, after the guy watched his two sons die in there first.’

  ‘Anything involving knives?’ Vargas asked quietly, after a pause.

  ‘Yeah, he killed a State witness by fixing a load of blades and springs in her hotel room bed. When she lay down on it, thing folded in half and speared her face to her knees. Put down some others by poisoning them with chemicals; a guy’s wife and sister had their stomachs burned out after they ingested some acid mix that he made them drink at gunpoint.’ He checked they weren’t being overheard. ‘Doesn’t go for the straightforward kill. But he seemed to get his rocks off most by hurting kids, so I heard. And that son of a bitch wasn’t afraid of anyone. Not someone you’d want on your trail.’

  Vargas swallowed, picturing Issy and the images that came to mind with the methods of execution this man had just described.

  But she kept her face expressionless. ‘What was his rate?’

  ‘You mean, success? Total, so I heard.’

  ‘I mean, how much did he cost?’

  ‘Hundred grand up front. He completes the job, he gets another six figures.’

  ‘You know the name of this FBI agent who lost his son?’

  ‘Marco might get curious if I ask. He knows I’m n
ot on board with this shit. Can’t you check with your people?’

  ‘FBI aren’t hugely co-operative with us, at the best of times.’

  ‘That’s your problem, lady. Only told you this because killing kids don’t sit right with me. But he’s out there right now, looking for your kid. So it might be a real good idea to figure out how to get the Bureau talkin’ to you.’

  *

  ‘Who is she?’ McGuinness asked, sitting on a park bench in Boston. Marco had contacted the man through his cousin and arranged a meeting, but as they watched kids playing soccer in the park ahead, he was on edge. He’d met some real bad people in his time but none of them had unsettled him quite like this individual; he was trying to work out exactly why.

  The guy was tall and spoke quietly, with a Southern accent. He was eating a pack of M&Ms slowly as they talked; Marco’s cousin had told him about some of the things this man had done, so watching a person he knew was capable of those acts casually eating the candy was strangely unsettling. The dark energy emanating from him was almost palpable as his eyes watched the kids ahead dispassionately, no flicker of emotion evident on his face as he studied each child in turn.

  ‘She’s the last member of a crime family in New York,’ Marco said, glancing around to make sure there was no-one close by.

  ‘Stop doing that.’ The man spoke without even turning his head.

  ‘Her parents pissed a lotta people off before they died,’ Marco told him, looking at the man instead of the park. ‘My employer’s one of them. She wants the girl gotten rid of.’

  ‘Anyone tried before?’

  ‘Yeah. They failed.’

  ‘Recently?’

  ‘Few years ago. The kid had protection that kept her alive.’

  One of the girls in the game ran up and thumped the soccer ball hard with her boot, two of the watching parents cheering encouragement as it went into the air.

  The tall man’s eyes ignored the ball, following her instead.

  ‘She’s been under Fed protection before and we think they’re still keeping an eye on her,’ Marco said. ‘Lives with a police detective now, we heard. Some chick in the NYPD Counter Terrorist Bureau. Hammer’s gonna drop once she’s gone. Whoever we hire needs to be prepared for that shit.’